All About Kitchenware

Whether you’re replacing your kitchenware following a renovation or a general kitchen improvement, or you plan to keep your current wares, there is one thing you know: kitchenware is expensive. Hopefully, you have plenty of room to store all of your kitchen stuff, ensuring easy access and a long life for all of your goods.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) offers a broad definition for kitchenware, describing it as “food preparation and storage utensils.” That encompasses many things, therefore some specificity is needed to describe what kitchenware means to most homeowners today.

Eating utensils — You don’t eat utensils, but you certainly use these tools to enhance your dining pleasure. Standard eating utensils include a fork, a knife and a spoon. For more elaborate meals, you may also include a butter knife, a soup spoon and a dessert fork. You can go even further with this, however your kitchen must have enough room to hold each of these items. Stemware is a another subsegment here and includes drinking glasses. One draw and one cabinet may not be enough to hold everything.

Food preparation utensils — Before you can eat, there are a number of food preparation utensils to have on hand. Literally, there are dozens of items found in today’s modern kitchens and these include a frying pan and cooking pots. You may also have on hand measuring cups, ladles, a strainer, a cheese grater, a can opener, mixing bowls, and various forks, spoons and knives. Your storage area is further tested by a number related utensils including scrapers, a meat thermometer, a colander, a strainer, a potato peeler, kitchen scissors, an herb chopper, funnels, a butcher block and cutting boards, just to name a few. Cookware sets alone can include 10, 12 more more items.

Serving food — You may serve some of your food directly from the stove to the table, but you also may use kitchenware to hold large portions of food that can be passed around the table. Such serveware includes serving bowls, platters, beverage dispensers and food bowls. These items can also include tiered buffet servers and specialty items such as a watermelon platter. Imagine the amount of room needed to store all of this stuff!

Storage items — Once you are done eating, chances are that you have leftovers to...